Fifth Takata airbag victim was pregnant

According to Honda, the victim in Malaysia – the fifth reported casualty linked to the Takata airbag scandal – that was driving a 2003 Honda City subcompact, was pregnant and the fetus died too after the accident.

The woman who died in Malaysia is the first reported death tied to the defective Takata Corp airbags outside the United States. Airbag inflators produced by the Japanese auto safety manufacturer have been known to explode with excessive force, sending shrapnel and metal debris flying inside the cabin at high velocity. The Malaysia victim died in a July 27 accident involving her 2003 Honda City subcompact produced in Thailand. According to Jordhatt Johan, head of public relations at Honda in Kuala Lumpur, the faulty airbag was manufactured in a Takata plant in Georgia, US and the carmaker so far has recalled at least 15,700 cars in Malaysia.

This is the latest fatality tied to a string of recalls that started back in 2008 and have involved millions of cars worldwide, with at least 8 million units in the US alone involved in safety campaigns since 2013. Back in July, the New Sarawak Tribune reported that after a road accident, a 43-year-old pregnant woman succumbed in an ambulance on the way to hospital – while an emergency operation successfully removed the fetus, the baby also died in an intensive care unit two days later.